P114
CN
III EMPIRE OF DIRT
BY STEVE COX
T
he idea of turning the AMA
250SX Regional Super-
cross Championships
into national championships
isn't new. It's been discussed
for at least a couple decades.
The series started out as a truly
regional 125cc feeder series
(back when the premier class
raced 250cc two-strokes), which
made it possible for the box-van
crowd (all factory teams and
many privateers raced out of box
vans at the time) to travel only
half the country and compete
for a championship. But eventu-
ally teams started pitting out of
race-team haulers and more and
more racers started flying to all
of the races, and at the same
time, more and more racers
began competing in the "wrong"
region.
John Dowd, from Massa-
chusetts, signed up to race the
125cc Western Regional Super-
cross Series, for example. And
complicating it even more was
the influx of foreign talent into
the series. Which coast should
Frenchmen Stephane Roncada
or David Vuillemin race? What
about Australian Chad Reed?
With the first of the three
scheduled 2018 AMA 250SX
East/West Shootout races run-
ning last weekend in Indianapo-
lis, the question of combining
the two regions into one national
series returned, and it seemed
that (at least) the podium finish-
ers in Indy were on board with
the idea.
Although they seemed to be in
favor of it, I'm not, for a multitude
of reasons:
First and foremost, if we com-
bine the two regions into one,
REGIONAL RAGE
Should regions
be eliminated and
replaced by one
250cc "national"
class in supercross?
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
ROB
KOY
